One of my favorite episodes of the old situation comedy “Cheers” is the one in which the bartender Woody has a falling out with his wife Kelly when they discover that their religious roots are in different Lutheran synods.

This episode came to mind when I heard a panel discussion on TV in the wake of the recent election of a new pope. One of the participants, making the point that religious differences sometimes are pretty silly, mentioned the so-called Great Schism of a thousand years ago in which ...